James turned 61 last week - a cause for celebration! He always likes to have a cake made with lemon so I found a recipe for Lemon Ginger Bundt Cake online. I think our baking powder may be past its prime because the cake didn't rise as much as I would expect. It was still good. No one complained.
For the birthday dinner I prepared Creamy Fish with Mushrooms and Bacon from the New York Times cooking pages. We picked up some Halibut from our favorite fishmonger Kyler's Catch in New Bedford. I substituted sour cream for the heavy cream but otherwise followed the recipe. The meal was served with Kyler's fresh baguette (a must whenever we go). It was enjoyed by all.
Pasta with Bacon, Cheese, Lemon, and Pine Nutsis described in the New York Times Cooking pages as "a modular meal". With pasta as a base and a variety of garnishes to pass around, diners can add as much or as little of each ingredient as they like. I used fettuccini as the pasta which turned out to be a good choice. Toasted pine nuts, cooked bacon, chopped fresh mint, red pepper flakes, grated Parmesan, and lemon zest were placed on the table in their own vessels so each of us could take as much as we wanted. Both James and I used all the "add-ons" but we were each able to decide how much of each according to our own tastes. Note that my labels include both "bacon" and "vegetarian" which illustrate the versatility of this recipe.
A very good and satisfying meal. We will likely try it again in the summer.
This recipe turned out to be a combination of a Vodka Penne recipe that I've been using for about 25 years and a favorite from the early days of this blog Spaghetti with Tomato, Bacon, and Onions.
Ricotta Pasta Alla Vodkacomes from the New York Times Cooking Pages. It is more time consuming and a bit more complicated than either of the other two recipes, and not good enough to be worth trying again. I will admit to using a bit too much of the red pepper flakes, but even had I not been heavy handed there, it would have still been just an ok dish.
I was able to use some leftover ricotta that I had from making lasagna on New Years Eve, and it didn't require me to buy any additional ingredients, an important part of my recent meal planning since I don't want to go to grocery store while I am recovering from a bout of Covid.
This was a dinner for one while the rest of my family is traveling. I made enough to have leftovers for lunch today.
December 30 was National Bacon Day. Luckily we had some bacon and I found this simple "no recipe" for Smashed Potatoes with Bacon, Greens, and Cheese recipe using some of the other ingredients we had on hand. We used bacon, cheddar /gruyere, kale, and avocados to make this colorful, flavorful, and easy lunch.
Serendipity is sometimes what brings us to try something new. This week it was a recipe on my Facebook feed from New York Times cooking that featured fried rice with bacon. I heavily modified this to something I could make without doing any additional shopping. We had leftover cooked rice and some uncooked bacon. The recipe also calls for cabbage and scallions, which I did not have so I did not use.
I began by cutting the bacon into small pieces and cooking in olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. When the bacon was cooked I removed it and then put in 4 minced garlic cloves which I sauteéd for about a minute and then added them to the bowl with the bacon bits.
Next I added some olive oil to the pan and then spread the rice in a layer on the bottom of the pan. I added Worcestershire Sauce, salt, and some ground ginger. I let it cook until it became crispy, then stirred it a bit and let it cook just a bit more after re-spreading it then folded in the bacon and garlic along with some sliced carrots and frozen peas.
As the rice was finishing I quickly cooked four over-easy eggs. The rice was divided onto two plates and two eggs were placed on top of each.
We were pleased with the meal. Easy, nutritious, delicious.
For this year's celebration (we seem to manage this one fairly often), we found a recipe whose name practically is the recipe: Blackberry Bacon Grilled Cheese. Anybody who knows how to make a grilled-cheese sandwich need only add these details:
blackberry refers to blackberry jam
bacon refers to crispy bacon, cooked before assembling sandwich
cheese refers to Swiss cheese (I used a nice, soft, lacy Swiss)
sliced, fresh jalepeños are the only component (aside from cooking butter) not implied in the title
grilled refers to sourdough bread (which was hard to find in these days of supply-chain challenges)
We had only Canadian bacon on hand, so I substituted that. It was leaner and less crispy than South-of-the-49th Bacon. This somewhat lighter alternative made for a nicely balanced sandwich.
The recipe is accompanied by photos that are far superior to any I could have taken of these somewhat messy sandwiches. The recipe itself helps me to understand why so many people whine about overlong, meandering food-blog posts.
We were quite pleased with ourselves last Sunday for remembering that Pi Day (3.14) was coming up, and so we got out our Teeny's Tour of Pie cookbook, from which we selected the decadent Bourbon Bacon Pecan Pie. James was in charge of making the crust, cooking the bacon, and whipping the cream for the topping; Pam was in charge of making the filling and baking.
Ingredients for this one include:
6 T butter at room temperature
1 c. packed light brown sugar
2 eggs (the recipe says 3, but I discovered that when a recipe calls for three I can use two to good effect)
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla extract
3/4 c. dark corn syrup
2 T. bourbon
3 cooked slices of bacon (the recipe says four, but we only had three so that's how many we used)
8 oz. chopped pecans
Whole wheat crust (recipe follows)
James steps in here to describe his pre-dinner efforts...
Before starting the crust, I cooked three thick slices of bacon, cutting them into small pieces as they cooked. I let them cook over low heat until crisp and then let them drain on paper towels.
This was a simple, basic crust. I did kitchen math on Teeny's Whole Wheat Crust recipe, because it is for a double crust and we would have no need of a top crust or second pie very soon. (Maybe next year we'll do a quiche and a pie on the same day.
The inclusion of a bit of whole wheat allowed us to pretend this dessert was a bit less decadent than it actually was. After cleaning and thoroughly drying the counter top on our Gilligan (kitchen island), I sprinkled a bit of white flour on it. Then I combined 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 Tbsp sugar. I then cut in 3/8 cup (3/4 of a stick) unsalted. butter and 1/8 cup (2 Tbsp) shortening.
I sometimes use two knives for this, but I have had success lately with a pastry cutter, pausing periodically to clear the gaps between its blades. Once I had that elusive crumbly texture, I kneaded in cold water and cold vodka, just a bit of each at a time, totalling only 2T of vodka and 4T of water. I rolled the dough into a ball, and then flattened it to a thick disk.
I then used a stone rolling pin to roll the disk out until it was a bit wider than the pie pan. I pressed it into the pan and put it in the fridge while I made dinner. After we ate, it had been chilling for well over an hour, making it ready for Pam' part.
Back to Pamela ...
The butter and brown sugar were mixed together and then the eggs were added (one at a time - stirring after each one) then the salt, vanilla, corn syrup and bourbon. Most of the chopped pecans went in, along with the bacon, but enough pecans were saved to put a layer into the bottom of the pie crust. Once these were placed, the rest of the filling was poured into the crust, and the pie was baked at 350 for 50 minutes. It then set and cooled for another 50 minutes.
The bacon and the more-than-usual amount of pecans cut down on the sweetness of what can be an overly sweet pie.
James again ... for the first time ever, I used a small mixing bowl and small whisk to make the whipped cream. As we say, rather than a mixer with a mixing attachment, we use a whisk with a rower attachment. Coastal rowing has given me some forearms! I combined about 1/3 cup whipping cream, 1 Tbsp confectioner's sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla and whipped until peaky. We put this on each slice, and I also splashed some bourbon on top of mine.
We had this for dessert following a simple dinner of fried rice. We did not want to overdo things!
Notice: No actual poodles were involved in this dinner. Rather ...
As regular readers of Nueva Receta will have realized, we often let the National Day Calendar inspire our culinary choices. The pandemic has affected this tendency in two somewhat contradictory ways. We are more likely to have spare time to browse the site, but we are also less likely to dash out to grab ingredients for a last-minute recognition of a made-up holiday. (Additional notice: all holidays are made up, but that is a discussion for, well, another day.)
Fortunately, Pam noticed National Quiche Lorraine Day before I set out for our weekly grocery run, so I I managed to get all the bacon and chives needed to do complete the main version found on the Simply Recipes Quiche Loriaine page. Writer Elise Bauer suggests several options for the crust (including a crust-free variation), so we of course turned to Deborah Madison's tome for a basic recipe.
The "we" in the previous sentence is a bit different this time -- our wonderful kid Harvey is here for a long visit. Since he watches British baking shows a lot, I pressed him into service! He made the pie crust with both wheat and white flour, salt, butter and a tiny bit of ice water. We put it in the fridge in our Pyrex pie plate, because I have learned that even on a mildly warm day, "room" temperature is the wrong temperature for a pie crust. I sat down to read the recipe with more care, and realized that we needed to put the pie in the oven earlier than I thought -- Bauer calls for it to bake for 40 minutes ahead of the filling. We came pretty close to this by the time we had other ingredients ready; we ignored the suggestions for pie weights, foil (which I do not even understand), and whatnot. The crust was beautiful, though Harvey thought it not quite as thin and uniform as he would have hoped.
I started cooking the bacon in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. In just the past year I have finally gotten good at this -- starting at medium high and gradually reducing the heat, removing each piece to drain when it reaches perfect doneness. While I did this, Harvey made the custard -- whisking five eggs very fresh from our friends at Maribett farm (the recipe calls only for three) and then adding the seasonings, milk, cream, and chives.
I shredded cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses together (Gruyere would have been even better, but we already had a lot of cheese in the house and decided we should use some of it) and put a small amount in the bottom of the crust. I then cut the bacon into 1/2-inch bits and distributed it evenly in the crust. We carefully poured the custard over this and put it in the oven. I turned around and discovered I had left most of the freshly-shredded cheese on the Gilligan (our kitchen island). I panicked a bit, because it should have been in the pan before the custard, so that the entire pie would be cheesy. Harvey advised calm, and suggested it might even be nice to have the cheesiness concentrated at the top.
So I carefully added the cheese and set the oven timer for 30 minutes. At that time, the top looked perfect as Harvey had predicted, but I could tell that the custard was still a bit jiggly. Worried about over-cooking the top, I reduced the heat from 350F to 325F and set the timer for 15 more minutes.
#RoundPieSquarePhoto
The ding-ding sounded again just as Pam finished a (rather dumb) Zoom meeting -- perfect timing! And this was the perfect meal to enjoy on our deck with some apple sauce on the side and Chardonnay in our glasses.
We followed this with some raspberry Entenmann's in honor of the attainment day of Pam's father Jack, who would have been 99 years old.
So what about that poodle, anyway?
I played the B52s song at the start of preparing this meal because it was not just a day to celebrate eggy custard pie (aka quiche), but also National Rescue Dog Day -- and this is a song about the singer's complicated relationship with his dog. As the people belonging to a rescue dog, we can certainly relate!
I googled New Year's Recipes on New Year's Eve and found The Pioneer Woman's website. From her list of 35 recipes I selected Butternut Squash Soup. I actually made it on New Year's Day, even though it says it's a New Year's Eve recipe. I also only made a half batch since the pandemic had only the two of us celebrating the start of 2021 together. I carefully added all the things I would need to make this soup to the shopping list of things James was going to procure, including the titular butternut squash. However, when he came home I discovered that he had neglected to buy one. Although we avoid multiple trips to the grocery store these days, he went back for this most important ingredient once we determined that it was indeed on the list!
As per the instructions I caramelized some chopped onions in the drippings left when I cooked the bacon then added the chopped pieces of squash to the pan along with some salt, chicken broth and water. I cooked everything on the stovetop until the squash was soft. Once I could cut the squash with the side of a fork I asked James for help transferring everything to our blender where it didn't take long at all for everything to purée. Once that was done it went back to the pan where we added some heavy cream and maple syrup. I split into two big bowls, and we topped with the crumbled bacon. So good, especially with homemade biscuits!
This is easily made vegetarian by skipping the bacon and cooking the onions and squash in olive oil and substituting vegetable broth for chicken broth. I image you can skip the cream and make it vegan as well.
Last Saturday was Pie (Pi) Day - 3.14. We had a bit of ground turkey left from when we made turkey burgers earlier in the week, so I told James I would start with that to make shepherd's pie. He didn't think it would really be enough, but I told him I could stretch it. He also seemed concerned because the turkey had apples and onions in it, but I couldn't see how the extra flavor would be a problem. He was prepared to make a grocery trip so I asked him to get some carrots and potatoes. He came back with carrots but said the produce section was completely wiped out of potatoes. We had six rather small ones on hand so again I decided I could stretch them. We also had 5 pieces of bacon so I started by cooking them and using them as a bottom "crust" for the pie. The filling was made with sauteéd onions and garlic, the cooked ground turkey, sliced carrots and peas. The potatoes were cooked and mashed for the topping. I baked everything at 375 for some amount of time. I don't remember. Anyway, it turned out good.
We are trying to be especially creative and thoughtful with our ingredients during this time of crisis. We did find an open farmer's market on Sunday. Not many people there (neither customers nor vendors) but we did buy some fresh vegetables to use in the coming week. We are both working from home this week. So far frustration levels are low to medium - having good food helps.
I recognize that the ability to put together meals when I have to make do with what is available is actually a privilege, and I am pleased to realize that over the nine plus years that we've been blogging about our cooking we have learned what flavors taste good together, what we like and don't like, and what we can tolerate. It has made meal preparation one less thing to worry about.
The days between Christmas and New Year's Day are slow-paced for us, and generally a time to relax. We spent a few days at our near-the-beach house and took some time to try some new dishes. Normally when we are at the beach house we have waffles for breakfast, but since we were there for four days we didn't want them all four mornings. James made them for the first two, and then I was in charge of breakfast. I found this recipe for Dutch Baby with Bacon and Runny Camembertfrom the New York Times Cooking pages. I don't think we'd ever had Camembert cheese before, and apparently no one at the deli counter at our local grocery store had ever even heard of it. James googled it and discovered that it was a type of brie, so he started looking around where the brie was located. This method worked and he brought home a nice 8 oz. wheel, just like the recipe called for. I followed the recipe pretty closely, with the exception that I only used seven eggs instead of eight, since that was all I had. This was both visually appealing, and really tasty. It made enough for the both of the remaining breakfasts.
The second recipe I tried was an easy skillet dinner Cheesy Spicy Black Bean Bake. This was quick and only the skillet was needed, no additional pots, pans, or bowls.
Spicy pairs well with sparkling, so we enjoyed a bottle of Blancs de Noirs from Westport Rivers Winery with this.
We knew it had been a while since we posted a new recipe, but we didn't realize how long! Seems we've gotten lax about finding a recipe, making a shopping list, enjoying (or not) a meal, and then writing about it. For this long overdue post I went to Grilled Cheese, Please in search of something easy, yet enticing.
In addition to shredded cheddar this sandwich has bacon,sliced tomato, and red onion. The onions were sliced and soaked in cold water while the bacon baked (we've recently taken to making bacon in the oven on a foil lined cookie sheet which makes clean up a lot easier). Once the bacon was done the sandwiches were assembled and then grilled on the stove top. The recipe called for sourdough bread, but I just used plain white bread since I had some leftover from the loaf I'd bought for a recent breakfast of french toast. The sandwiches were hearty and full of flavor and texture. We ate them with a side dish of mashed potatoes, and paired with Malbec.
This easy dish is just what it sounds like, and perhaps better than it deserves to be. When I asked Pam for suggestions about dinner, she found this NYT recipe in her saved list, and remembered that local bacon was in the freezer from a recent delivery.
The Hiram
The ingredients are few, and I did not worry too much about proportions. As I have seen with other recipes involving spinach, I rightly guessed that the entire 5-ounce bag of arugula would reduce to a reasonable size as it wilted, though writer Colu Henry was correct that it was a bit unwieldy at first, even in Hiram, our rather large indispensable cast-iron skillet. At that stage, rather than stirring in the traditional sense, I lifted large spoonfuls of the pasta from the perimeter of the pan and set it in the center, repeating until regular stirring was manageable.
The recipe also has few steps, but the third step reads like an entire tango. I simplified this a bit, adding the bacon all at once and the reserved pasta liquid as I saw fit. I did not note emulsification or glossiness, but nonetheless had a good sense of when the sauce was ready.
This dish scores very well on the delicious-nutritious-easy-cheap trade-off matrix. My selection of quality local ingredients made it slightly less cheap but still quite reasonable. This paired nicely with a side dish of fresh local strawberries and a well-chilled Pinot Grigio. We are looking forward to the cold leftovers today!
Dying phone battery made for a fuzzy photo of this pleasing dish.
When I started this blog lo these seven and a half years ago my intention was to make good use of my cookbook collection. Too many of my gems were being underused. Over the years I have found myself using the cookbooks less often, as I find more recipes online. This post pays homage to the original intent of my project. I got out one of my oldest cookbooks New Recipes forPasta, Rice, and Beans - one of those flimsy magazine-quality numbers you can find at the grocery store checkout line, which I am sure is where I picked this one up, sometime in the '90s. We use it often for its stuffed pepper recipe, but I decided to find a "nueva receta" this time and selected "South-of-the-Border Bean and Bacon Pizza". I frankly don't believe that this is a Mexican dish by any stretch, but I didn't come up with the name. The little cookbook is from Pillsbury, and therefore every recipe includes some name-brand ingredients. I ignored this, and certainly wasn't about to use pre-prepared pizza crust in any case. I made the dough in my bread machine. Nor did I use Joan of Arc Spicy Chili beans. I did used canned kidney beans, and then added some chili powder and other spices. Otherwise, I followed the recipe. It was a tasty and filling meal.
Having had a romantic holiday last week, we turned to the romance portion of our cookbook cabinet, where I found a new recipe idea. Or so I thought: we had tried the avocado and sun-dried tomato fettuccinerecipe from Intercourses just after said holiday four years ago, but I had forgotten.
Pam noticed the repeat this morning, as she continues to review all of our entries for our new especialidad de la casa tag. She is adding that tag to every recipe we post that is either completely original to us or such a major modification that we consider it our own. I am glad we had forgotten this one, because the 2014 review suggests a dish we would not have made for a special occasion (which our 33rd Valentine's Day together most certainly was).
I did the same recipe that Pam had done earlier, with just a couple of changes. First, I think I used some basil, and a bit more of the scallions. The sun-dried tomatoes I used were not packed in oil. I think I did add a bit of oil. A much more important difference is that I blended the ingredients in the bowl with a spoon, not a blender. So it was a medley, not a sauce.
Finally I did not include any cheese, but I did top this with plenty well-cooked, crumbly bacon. I think we substituted parm the first time because our vegetarian kid was dining with us. As I made this, I realized that this might succeed as a vegan dish with the use of a good bacon substitute.
Two weeks ago one of James' colleagues brought him some bread from her brother's bakery - a loaf of sourdough and a loaf of rye. We used most of it to make some sandwiches, but as we were getting down to the tiny pieces and the heels, this recipe showed up on my Facebook feed. Since it called for bacon (which we already had on hand) and sourdough bread it seemed like a good thing to try. It is not difficult to make, although it calls for several rounds of "letting it stand", so it does take more time than one might expect. I also make a small mess with the immersion blender. The soup splattered out of the pot, and onto my clothes, as well as the stove top and kitchen walls. We used both the last bits of the sourdough and the rye, and the flavor of the rye was quite detectable. It was a good recipe for using up the last few pieces of bacon and the bread that was beginning to go stale, but I wouldn't make it again otherwise.
James and I like to read together, and listen to audio books together when we are in the car. The last time we read a memoir about food Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks her way through Great Bookswe talked about a lot of recipes we planned on trying from the book, but over a year later we have yet to prepare any. By contrast, we are still in the midst of listening to Guilia Melucci's I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti, and have already enjoyed her recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara. The recipe is simple. Ingredients include:
3 slices of cooked bacon
3 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/4 c. freshly grated pecorino, plus a little more for passing
1/4 c. freshly grated parmigiano, plus a little more for passing
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Cooked pasta
I think we only used parmigiano cheese, but otherwise followed the recipe which calls for adding the cooked pasta to a warm bowl with the (uncooked) eggs and cheese and letting the hot pasta cook the eggs. She does realize that some may not like the idea of the undercooked eggs, and suggests that everything can be cooked in a skillet on the stovetop instead. We decided to try it creamy the way Melucci intended. The bacon, salt and pepper are added before serving.
When I was a kid I liked to watch reruns of Gomer Pyle: USMC.I remember one episode ("The Price of Tomatoes") in which a tomato farmer comes under fire for growing his crop on Camp Henderson property. The issue is resolved with the base agreeing to use much of the farmer's bounty in its mess hall. Sargent Carter (Frank Sutton) is less than thrilled with this arrangement. This is evident as he recites a list to Corporal Boyle (Roy Stuart) of all the tomato-based recipes to which they will now be subjected. The list ends with Carter saying "and get this...tomato pie"!
I understood where Sgt. Carter was coming from. I, myself, used to truly hate tomatoes, even the thought of eating one could make me gag. And I could not for the life of me understand where anyone could even come up with anything so unappetizing as a tomato pie! Who even ever heard of such a thing?
Sometime during my twenties I started liking tomatoes, to the point that they are, in fact, now one of my favorite foods. So, imagine my delight at finding a recipe for the legendary tomato pie in one of our relatively recent acquisitions - TheBeach House Cookbook.
The recipe calls for a prepared pie crust. Bah! It really isn't hard to make a pie crust. I don't know why people insist on buying them. I used this recipe for Buttermilk Pie Crust to make my own. It is important to note that you do not necessarily need buttermilk to make a pie crust. I used this recipe only because we already had some buttermilk on hand. I brushed some habañero mustard onto the crust once it was in the pan and baked for 10 minutes at 350.
For the filling we started with some big, juicy heirloom tomatoes from the Fairhaven (Massachusetts) Farmer's Market. I made thin slices, sprinkled them with garlic salt, and set them on some paper towels while I prepared the rest of the ingredients.
I next mixed 1/2 c. of mayonnaise, 1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese, and a few dashes of pepper. I also cooked six slices of thick bacon to perfect crispiness. Finally I mixed 1/2 c. cheddar cheese with 1/2 c. feta (this was a slight deviation from the recipe as written).
Once all the ingredients were ready one layer of tomatoes went onto the bottom of the pie crust with three crumbled bacon slices on top. The mayonnaise/Parmesan mixture went in next, followed by another layer of tomatoes and the rest of the crumbled bacon. The cheddar/feta mixture went on top, and then the final layer of tomatoes. I also sprinkled on some fresh basil leaves. Once this was prepared the pie went into the oven for 30 minutes at 350, then we let it stand for 15 minutes before slicing and serving. As good as this was when I made it on Monday, the leftovers we had for lunch today (reheated in our indispensable cast iron skillet) were sublime.
Some thirty years ago James and I spent our wedding night at a hotel in Columbia, Maryland. The following morning we had breakfast at a restaurant on Main Street in Historic Ellicott City called Side Streets. The restaurant is long gone, but we have a lasting memory of the delicious first meal of our first full day of married life - an Eggs Benedict-esque repast made with crab meat in lieu of ham.
I was inspired by the leftovers of my birthday meal(Oysters à la Gino) to make something similar to our matrimonial breakfast for brunch on Memorial day. All of the oysters got eaten at dinner on Saturday, but there was a fair amount of crab and bacon filling leftover, which James baked in a tiny casserole dish. I spread some of this filling on each of two pieces on Naan bread and broiled for about a minute. Meanwhile I fried two eggs, and then placed one on top of each of the crab/bacon/Naan piles. I added some shredded Parmesan cheese and then broiled again for another minute or so until the cheese melted. Nothing wrong with this meal, except that I wish there were more!
Once again, Pam has proven her prowess at finding recipes that can be made with ingredients on hand in our larder. It helps that we keep the kitchen well supplied with a variety of ingredients and very few prepared foods. It also helps that we have a lot of cook books. But mainly Pam is just very good at this.
Knowing that we had some bacon remaining from earlier dishes. Pam looked for a recipe that would make good use of it. She turned first to Comfortable in the Kitchen by Meredith Laurence, also known as the Blue Jean Chef (BJC). I think she might have a television show. The book had been a gift of my mother, and features slightly sophisticated comfort foods, such as the Comfortable Crusty Chicken and ginger salmon we blogged about last December.
On page 80, Pam found Bacon, Tomato and Green Pea Mac 'n' Cheese. The recipe begins with heating the oven to 350F, and then bringing a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. It calls for macaroni or "other short pasta" which in this case meant penne. A couple minutes before the pasta was done, I added 1-1/2 cups of frozen peas. I had never thought of doing so at this early stage, but will certainly do so in future casseroles. When strained, the pasta and peas just rested in the colander while I continued to work with the indispensable cast-iron skillet.
The recipe calls for 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, halved. At Pam's suggestion, I used a can of diced tomatoes, placing them in a sieve early in the process so that they would be well drained.
There I had been cooking bacon. The BJC called for six slices, chopped into one-inch pieces. I had missed that detail until just now, and failed to chop up the bacon. Fortunately I had gotten it crispy enough that it easily broke into pieces in the mixing bowl. I removed the bacon and then cooked a small, finely-chopped onion until it was translucent and added six tablespoons of flour and one tablespoon of mustard powder (the BJC had suggested only two teaspoons). I then gradually whisked in four cups of milk (not too cold) until a roux was formed, brought it to a gentle simmer and cooked it until thickened.
Photo: Comfortable in the Kitchen
I removed the skillet from heat and then stirred in the grated cheeses. I used a total of about three cups of sharp Vermont cheddar and parmesan, but the BJC calls for 3 cups Gruyere or Swiss, 2 cups cheddar, and one cup parmesan.
Once the cheeses were incorporated into the sauce, everything went into a big mixing bowl for thorough stirring. I then combined panko crumbs (in lieu of the homemade bread crumbs BJC suggests) with thyme and parsley (again substituting dry herbs for the fresh ones called for) as a topping. I put the penne mix in a 9x13 casserole and topped it with the crumb mix. I baked this for about a half hour.
The result: excellent comfort food and plenty of it. It will be a significant part of this afternoon's Saturday linner. The only drawback to this recipe is that it turned what is often a one-dish recipe into an every-dish-we-own recipe. This made me grateful for our dishwasher!
